Midnight
by Melissa Rose
Summary: The origins of John's shark Zippo. If you look, in X1, Pyro's just using a plain silver lighter.


**Title:** Midnight  
**Fandom:** X-Men (movies)  
**Characters:** Pyro/Rogue  
**Summary:** The origins of John's shark Zippo. If you look, in X1, Pyro's just using a plain silver lighter.  
**Author's Notes:** Pre-X2; Part One of Two.

"Well, I wasn't sure what to get you," Rogue said, handing over the small, green-and-red wrapped package. "Figured you could at least put this to good use."

She was standing in the doorway of John and Bobby's room, leaning against the frame, offering up the gift with raised eyebrows, almost challengingly. With Bobby gone for Winter Break, Rogue had already given her boyfriend his Christmas present. But she'd waited until Christmas Eve to give John his.

From the expression on John's face, he hadn't been expecting a gift from her. But the surprise faded and he finally rolled his eyes, taking the present from her but not inviting her in. In fact, he had the door shut halfway and she'd had to wedge her foot in it just to keep him from shutting it in her face.

Rogue made a mental note to skip anything Christmas-y with John next year. Just getting him to have a civil conversation with her was difficult enough; he'd been a royal pain in the ass since she and Bobby had started dating. Rogue figured that the pyromaniac was just pissed off about having his best friend all but stolen out from under his nose by a girl.

Whatever. She did her best to be nice, even if that usually meant that she was snapping at him irritably in response to his own behavior. But if he was going to be a rude jackass when she was trying to spread a little Christmas cheer… well. Then screw him.

"I promise it's not gonna blow up or anything," Rogue said with a huff. "Go on, hold it up to your ear. It's not ticking."

John scratched his nose, glancing behind him and pushing the door closed a little more so that she could only see a small corner of the bedroom he was trying so hard to keep her out of. "You think about blowing me… up a lot?"

The pause between the words 'me' and 'up' made Rogue roll her eyes, mumbling something under her breath that sounded vaguely like _not in this lifetime_. "John, don't be an idiot." After a pause, she added, "More than you can help." She crossed her arms over her chest and nodded to him. "Are you going to open it or what?"

He coughed, shot another glance behind him, looking uncharacteristically… nervous. Rogue didn't get to see him anything akin to nervous often enough. In fact, he got off on flustering her too much for her to _ever_get the chance to see him nervous and the fact that he was fidgeting now made her smirk.

"I don't care if you didn't get me anything," she said. She hadn't expected him to and that hadn't been why she'd bought _him_a gift.

John scowled at her. "I _did_get you a gift. It's just not wrapped and ready to give to you yet."

Rogue blinked, a little surprised. And the fact that he kept glancing behind him suddenly made sense - so did the fact that he had a piece of double-sided tape stuck to the sleeve of his button down shirt. "Oh. Well. Open mine now anyway."

John stared at her a second before grumbling to himself and tearing into the wrapping paper. Then opened the lid on the small black box she'd put his gift in.

His mouth twitched when he saw what it was. A lighter. A Zippo from the looks of it. With a shark emblem on its flip top. Smirking, John glanced up at her. "You got me a lighter?"

"Like I said… didn't know what you'd want. Thought I couldn't go wrong with giving you something to burn things with."

John snorted and nodded, taking the lighter out of the box and tossing the wrapping and the box aside with little regard for where they landed. He flipped the top open experimentally with a _clack_, then snapped it shut. "Could get used to that," he said, repeating the same gesture for effect.

Rogue swallowed a groan. That? The sound of his lighter opening and closing, if he decided to make a habit out of it? Was going to get irritating. Fast.

"Yeah, well. Great. Merry Christmas." Rogue pulled her foot out from the space between the door and wall, stepping away to head back to her room.

"Hey. Hold on." John shoved the lighter in his pocket and poked his head out of his room to catch her attention before she left. "Meet me later? In the common room. Gotta give you your present since I'm going to the trouble of wrapping it and everything."

Rogue's brow furrowed; he actually sounded… nice. Or something. It was weird coming from John. He rarely smiled at her or said anything that wasn't either suggestive and vulgar or completely dismissive of her.

She hesitated, looking at him like she was waiting for the punch line, then, finally, shrugged. "Yeah, okay. What time?"

"Midnight." Though he was already digging in his pocket and pulling out the Zippo, back to entertaining himself with snapping the lid open and closed. Apparently done with their conversation, he disappeared into his room, shutting the door behind him.

Rogue just shook her head and walked away.

Rogue had loved Christmas when she was a child growing up in Mississippi. Her parents hadn't had a lot of money, but they always managed to make the holidays _special_. And, each year, they got her one special gift, something that cost a little more than all the other knickknacks and stocking stuffers they surprised her with. A porcelain doll when she'd been six that had never made it into her duffel bag when she left Mississippi. A music box, complete with twirling ballerina, when she was twelve which had somehow managed to get lost in transit when she ran away from home. A delicate, dainty tea set when she was eight that she'd managed to accidentally chip by the time she was nine. Those had been among her favorites.

And, since they weren't prone to white Christmases in Meridian, her father would buy bags and bags of fake snow - which was, really, pieces of paper cut up to make white confetti - and then spread them all over the living room in piles. Her mother had hated it and retaliated by shaking the hose of her vacuum at him and telling him to go away and stop making a mess. But there had been a certain _look_that passed between them, even when they were bickering, that told Marie that her parents really and truly loved each other.

Christmas Eve was spent sipping hot chocolate with marshmallows in front of the fire place and looking at old family photos and telling old family stories in order to keep her awake long enough to go to midnight mass. A mass that she usually fell asleep during when she was younger and managed to grin and bear by the time she's reached her preteens. And, the next morning, she somehow always managed to be the last one up, excited kid or not, because her mother and father woke up early - or, perhaps, never went to sleep - to cook breakfast together.

Her father was _hopeless_in the kitchen, a thought that brought a faint smile to Rogue's face as she sat with her knees drawn up in the common room of the school. Maybe most students would find watching the tree for hours boring, but she was perfectly content to sit here quietly, lost in her thoughts and memories.

Besides, she'd told John she'd meet him here at midnight. But, at five after, Rogue was starting to think that he'd fallen asleep or was just planning on blowing her off. Neither of which would have surprised her.

Bobby had gone home to Massachusetts for Winter Break and that had left John and Rogue in a somewhat unfamiliar territory since they didn't spend a lot of time together without Bobby as a buffer. And, quite frankly, Rogue couldn't help but be certain that John was a selfish, thoughtless, rude jerk - if she was allowed to use the way he usually treated her to make her assessment.

She was convinced that every snide comment he made, whether it was about the white streaks in her hair, or the way she dressed to cover up her skin, or the lack of physical intimacy between her and Bobby, was intentional and meant to piss her off. Rogue just didn't buy for a second that John could be so obnoxious without realizing exactly what he was doing.

Which made the fact that John had asked to meet her to here on Christmas Eve (or, rather, it was technically Christmas Day now, wasn't it?) so he could give her a gift just plain weird. He could have easily waited until the next morning since that was probably when most people were exchanging presents. But she'd long since stopped trying to understand John.

Rogue glanced at the door to the common room, surprised to find John standing in the doorway, watching her. She blinked and squinted at him. "How long have you been standing there?" She'd apparently been too lost in thought to hear his approaching footsteps.

He just shrugged, not answering verbally, and came into the room, slumping down on the couch and stretching his legs out.

Honestly, he looked like he'd done battle with tape and wrapping paper and Christmas bows and had gotten massacred. There was still tape stuck to his shirt - though Rogue suspected it was a different piece than the one that had been there earlier, since it was in a different spot. Shaking her head, Rogue snorted. "You've got a bow stuck to the back of your shirt."

John grumbled, seeming even more surly that usual, sitting up and tugging at his shirt to find the bow, then ripped it off, going to throw it, the sticky end catching on his finger and forcing him to shake his hand to get it to fall off. "Stupid goddamn things. Shouldn't be this fucking difficult to wrap a present."

Then he all but threw the package he was holding at her.

Rogue managed to catch it, surprised by its heaviness, and looked at him questioningly. Talk about a bad mood; she hadn't been the one to ask him to meet her, so she didn't know why she was being given an attitude and getting things thrown at her. "Hope it's not breakable."

John just settled back again, leaning his head back on the top of the couch as though he wasn't even paying attention to her.

How nice. He couldn't have just given her the gift of not having to put up with him tonight? That was the gift that just kept on giving.

She sighed and tore the paper off the present, pursing her lips at the small, rectangular, mahogany box.

John sighed. "Open it."

Rogue flipped open the top of the box and was immediately met with a familiar tune and the sight of a twirling ballerina dressed in pink tulle. It wasn't an _exact_ replica, but the similarities to the music box her parents had given her as a child were unmistakable. Especially since the music - the theme from _Romeo and Juliet_- coming from this box was practically identical to the music from the one she'd been given when she was twelve.

She looked up suddenly, the question clearly visible in her expression. "How did you…"

"You told me."

"No, I didn't."

Oh, right. Of course. "You told Bobby. Naturally, you didn't notice I was sitting right there," he muttered under his breath, then cleared his throat like he hadn't said anything at all. "Doesn't matter. Thought you'd like it. You said you lost the other."

Rogue wasn't paying attention to the second half of what he was saying, just the first. "You remembered?"

John shrugged, looking uncomfortable. She'd managed to make him look uncomfortable twice in one day. Amazing.

"Yeah, whatever. There's one of those stupid stands in the mall that makes this sort of thing, no big deal."

"It is a big deal. It's…" Well, it was a lot more thoughtful than the scarf and gloves Bobby had gotten her. And this must have been fairly expensive; it wasn't like, as far as she knew, John had some secret stash of extra-spending money hidden under his mattress. "Did you… how'd you afford to get anyone else a gift?"

John snorted. "Bobby went home, what the hell does he need a Christmas present from me for? And as for the rest of the school… fuck 'em. What do I care?"

What _did_he care? Fair enough, Rogue figured. John didn't seem to like much of anyone at the school anyway. But he'd cared enough to get her something, which she would have pointed out if she hadn't been convinced that he'd bite her head off for it and if she hadn't noticed the piece of paper folded up and nestled in the bottom of the music box.

She shot another quizzical look at him, before pulling it out, offering it to him. "…Is this a receipt or something? I don't want to look at it if you just forgot to take it out."

He hesitated, then actually reached out as though he was going to take the paper from her. Then he groaned, leaning his head back again and shutting his eyes. "Nah. That's for you too."

Setting the music box in her lap, Rogue unfolded the paper slowly, going silent and reading the type-written words on it. A poem.

_She walks in beauty, like the night  
Of cloudless climes and starry skies;  
And all that's best of dark and bright  
Meet in her aspect and her eyes:  
Thus mellow'd to that tender light  
Which heaven to gaudy day denies.  
One shade the more, one ray the less,  
Had half impair'd the nameless grace  
Which waves in every raven tress,  
Or softly lightens o'er her face;  
Where thoughts serenely sweet express  
How pure, how dear their dwelling place._

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,  
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,  
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,  
But tell of days in goodness spent,  
A mind at peace with all below,  
A heart whose love is innocent!

She didn't say anything immediately after reading it and, from the looks of it, John wouldn't notice that she was done reading the paper anyway. He still hadn't opened his eyes, like he was trying to ignore her.

Then, like he knew that she was watching him, John straightened up and shrugged, rubbing at the back of his neck. "I dunno. It made me think of you."

She smoothed out the folds in the piece of paper with her gloved hand. "It's pretty. Did you write it?"

He paused, then said, "Yeah, sure."

Rogue looked up, their eyes meeting. _Liar._They both knew he hadn't. And they both knew that the other knew he hadn't. But neither said anything to argue the point. "Well… thanks. It's…" Her eyes dropped to the music box again.

More than pretty. And thoughtful. _She walks in beauty…_She hadn't known that was what he thought of her.

The weight shifted on the couch as John stood and Rogue glanced up at him again. She opened her mouth to say something, maybe about the fact that she was touched by the gift. Or maybe about the fact that it had given her a better idea of why John acted the way he did. But he cut her off before she could decide on one or the other.

"See you later," he said with a shrug, already leaving the room without giving her a chance to respond, pulling the lighter she'd given him earlier out of his pocket and snapping it open and closed in an almost fidgety, nervous way.

And Rogue wondered why he'd given her a gift like this if he wasn't even going to wait around to see how she reacted to it.

John had never planned on waiting around for a response. The problem with seeing how she reacted to the gift and to what it undeniably meant was that he was pretty sure he wouldn't like whatever response she had. Of course he wouldn't. Bobby was the golden boy, after all. Everyone's all-around great guy.

John didn't think for a second that Rogue would consider anyone _but_ Bobby worthy of her affections. Even if John knew, without a doubt, that she'd never really be happy with the guy. Bobby was too good, too naïve, too normal, too _whole_to be a good match for her.

John _had_written a poem for her all on his own and it was safely hidden away, scribbled on a scrap of paper in his desk. He'd considered giving that one to her instead, instead of copying a poem out of their English Lit books and then dismissed the idea. There was such a thing as asking to have his feelings shot down.

And, anyway, he just wasn't ready to be _that_ honest yet.


End file.
